


And Your Touch Will Stop Me

by roseluu (rowanscrown)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, Minor Lithuania/Poland (Hetalia), Soviet Union
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 08:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12502648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanscrown/pseuds/roseluu
Summary: Ivan has always had a strange fascination with his hair.





	And Your Touch Will Stop Me

**Author's Note:**

> request from sofia.flacks

It’s always different, he supposes, when it comes to fingers. Depending how hard they push, how preened their nails are, the sizes in callouses and scars. If those are taken care of quickly, if they are neglected. How deep lines are etched into joints. If they curl or glide. Yes, _yes_ , it matters greatly if they curl or glide.

It’s cordial when fingers glide. There’s always a pleasant spark behind fingers like those, because they are insistent yet amidst a curious discovery. So, they drift further over uncharted lands, mapping out hills and valleys, the bumps and ridges in his skull, the invisible spots that have gone pale with scar tissue that can only be found if touched.

Fingers have run through his hair for centuries. He remembers small hands grasping at the ratty, twisted twine his hair had become as a nomad. His queens toyed with his hair; his people played with it. They tugged at his scalp with rugged bones and curt, strung fingers. They were never rough.

Feliks’s fingers were warm. He’d taught him everything he needed to know, guiding him through clove oils during winter, the places to lather red wine. Rosemary smelled the best, but even more so with nutmeg and watercress. And the rosewater. He’s sure Feliks had prayed over rosewater, either it be at night next to the candlelight, or during their afternoons in the rye. He’d dip ivory in warm rosewater and comb Toris’ hair with fingers that glided so fluidly, he was sure his skin would melt.

Feliks had loved his hair, and Ivan is no different.

The hands of Russia are, unsurprisingly, cold. They are unguarded and strong, insistent like his past queens’ and carry something Toris can’t quite, and never will, place. Still, they differ from anything before, because they pull and caress and mislead. Always unknown and sudden.

Ivan likes his hair, and it’s confusing.

Nights alone at the sink, shoulders buried in soapy water, are peaceful nights when Ivan stands behind him and tugs. Never says much of anything. Sometimes, "soft" and sometimes "it's too late for housework."

Then there’s the yanking. He’d say Feliks hadn't done the same, but he’d be lying. Feliks always hopped on his back, wrapped his thighs around his waist when excited, jerking his hair to reach his lips. Sometimes when he was half asleep next to him in the soil and flowers and gave soft yet persuasive tugs for Toris to move, to come closer.

But, he’d also be lying if it reminds him too much of Feliks. Toris never knows when his hair will be yanked. Ivan has never grasped full control of his strength, his hands always too large, fingers fumbling for the right grip, grasping for the right amount of pressure and pinch yet never reaching it. He hardly apologizes. When he does, it's because Toris pulls away, and Ivan's makes the face of a guilty man, for a simple, fleeting moment before he smiles, apologizes, and leaves. Raivis worries when this happens, when he sees it. He worries the most when the smallest of things happen.

His hair bows over his face when he answers the phone, bends over to pick up an object dropped, while he’s scrubbing dishes and foggy windows. When he has the leisure to leave into town and return, he blows strands away from his nose and cheeks. This is something he’s never noticed before.

Even when his hair is frayed as his soldiers die, and he’s sure some of it has been ripped out – a consequence for rebellion – Eduard quickly scrubs the red from his hair with his bare hands as he lays prone in the mattress. Eduard shouldn’t be doing this. Any other day Toris would scurry him out of the bedroom, but today is different. He has left. He has left his brothers, and hasn’t yet come back.

Ivan soothes then yanks then soothes again, always unsure, always suppressing how unsure he is. And when Toris hurts more and more, he massages and whispers in his ear the language Toris has come to understand. His fingers are large against his skull, cradle the nape of his neck when he goes limp on the floor, winding in thick ropes at his scalp while his body bleeds underneath the thick wool blanket that claws his shoulders.

Sometimes, he sees Ivan’s eyes say _I’m sorry. So, so sorry._ But his fingers have always curled, and Toris can never find it in himself to forgive.


End file.
